Holy shit. That was way more re-traumatizing than I thought it would be.
"Space Shuttle Discovery by yeahbouyee.
Used under Creative Commons 2.0 I'm watching the docu-series Challenger: The Final Flight on Netflix. Episode 3 just finished with the explosion of the orbiter.
All of sudden, I was in the 7th grade again and 11 years old. I working on a video project for my English class in the media center with a friend. We were crudely splicing video clips together using a pair of VCRs. We had a stack of video cassettes full of stuff we had recorded off of cable television at home. I was that kid who was obsessed with space travel and science-fiction, we both were, and we had planned on breaking for the launch. We just took a break from shooting video we had just captured.
I remember many of the adults I knew were passe about the launches, they had become commonplace. To us, we were excited. We were the generation that grew up on all 3 Star Wars movies. We watched the lift-off. I could only imagine how loud the engines were and the heat from the engines. We let our imaginations run.
We had lift-off.
We held our breath for what felt like forever. Once we thought it was free, we cheered. We were excited again. We were excited about every launch. The last time we watched a shuttle launch in the Media Center, we were scolded for being too loud.
73 seconds into launch, everything changed. The orbiter had come apart and exploded. We stood there with our mouths open.
"The silence is deafening." - Tom Brokaw, reporting on the accident
At the time, I was devastated but in that abstract way. There was a teacher on that flight and she could've been one of my teachers.
I don't remember anything of the rest of that day. But I remember that moment.
I am not okay at the moment but I'll be fine in the end, I've processed this shock before but with all of the interviews and archival footage, this way more personal.
I need something lighter. I think continuing my binge-watching of Lucifer should do the trick.